Quaranta is a transgender woman, and has claimed she was discriminated against and treated unfairly after coming out in 2012. She has also filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the city.

The board voted 3-2 to deny the pension, and members who voted against it, including Mayor Daniel Drew, said they did not believe doctor's reports definitively showed that Quaranta is disabled.

The city terminated her last year after she failed a fitness for duty evaluation. Quaranta has argued it was that evaluation, which said she should not return to work as a police officer, that prompted her to apply for the disability pension.

At the pension hearing in November, Quaranta presented opinions from four doctors she said show that she has "emotional disabilities, specifically PTSD" that were caused by her work environment in the Middletown Police Department.

"All four of my doctors said there were severe emotional issues, three out of four citing symptoms of PTSD, that were caused by certain actions by co-workers and supervisors directed toward me in the line of duty and all the doctors agreed this caused a permanent disability," Quaranta said Tuesday.

Pension board members discussed one report in particular last year, which they said stated that Quaranta was unable to perform the duties of a Middletown police officer, rather than a general statement about being able to perform the duties of a police officer in any setting.

Quaranta is being represented by the police union's attorney, Eric Brown.

"Although the plaintiff presented sufficient evidence of eligibility for such disability pension benefits in that she was able to prove that she was totally and permanently disabled … the defendant Retirement Board denied the plaintiff's application for a disability pension," Brown wrote in the three-page appeal.